new to chickens. Need any advice

I don't actually have my girls yet. Intend to get them late March. Getting started on the run and coop. We intend to start with 12 hens and one rooster. We want eggs and meat birds. We want the hens to be the incubators. My main question is will the rooster pester the hens all the time or only during mating season? How do we keep the girls from getting roughed up and losing feathers? Any advice on getting started?

everyday is mating season for chickens..... 12 hens and 1 rooster, they'll be fine..... just to save you some time n money.... build the biggest coop, the biggest run you can afford and or have room for...... because i almost gurantee that you will end up wanting and or getting more than you originally planned.... they are addicting little critters and the only thing holding me and most of us back from having more birds is the room.......... have fun, and welcome..

Quote:My advice is build much larger than you need, if you can afford to. You will need the space for brooding, and growing if you will be raising them. You also need to choose a good dual purpose breed and then add a few hens that are notorious for going broody to ensure your hatches such as Silkies or Cochins. One Roo should not do alot of damage but there are always chicken "saddles" for protection.

I wish I had made my coop and run divided into 2 sections (at least), with doors that I could leave open or closed, so that is my advice. I had to put up a temporary wall of screen and chicken wire to section off an area for my broody hen. A few days after the chick hatched, she began raising it out with the main flock, but the chick was attacked either by the rooster or another hen, so we had to put them back in a sectioned off area. It came in handy later, too, when I had young chicks that I hatched indoors that I wanted to raise out in the coop until they were ready to integrate with the older flock.
Our Buff Chantecler has been sitting pretty much non-stop since spring! I hear Orpingtons are broody too.
Have fun!

Well we are making great progress on the coop. We are getting ready to install the roost. How high do we want the roost for our buff orpingtons? We are going to have orpingtons and barred rocks. I saw somewhere that the BO's couldn't get on the roost if they were very high. How high is too high? Can the roost be too low? Our coop is 6 ft tall.

Love the coop. So the rungs are the roost? Looks like we should be okay if we start with the roost two feet off the ground and go up by two feet? Thanks for the picture. I am amazed by how many options are out there.